Transcription
My phone is ruining my life. I was miserable. As soon as I'd be able to exit one, another would open. Time was blurring and I let my phone take over. I wanted to take control back. Something needed to change. I needed to invent something. So I tried to find answers, anything that could help. And I found a lot of things that just didn't work for me. And then I found it. A way to go analog without having to live like a monk. Honestly, it felt like being an outlaw, leaving my anxiety fuelled modernity behind as I embraced the analog life and went rogue. Anarogue. I think that was it.
The Anarogue System at its core is five simple steps that stack on top of each other like Legos. I wanted to test it, see what I could come up with over the course of the week while I didn't use my phone and instead went with my Anarogue System.
STEP 1: Make my phone as boring as I could. In order to do that, it meant no color and no style. If I could do that, then everything else would be that much easier. I made it so it was just another tool instead of the all-in-one entertainer that it suddenly became. This surprisingly had a pretty big effect on me. All the flashing lights would pull me in and keep me there. And companies are more than aware of this. They're preying on the fact that our eyes and our brain have been developing for thousands of years in order to spot food, shelter, and predators. Now that it was just another tool that I had, I could create some distance with it. I was able to look around and realize how alive everything around me was. This let me keep my phone in my life without making any drastic changes. After that is step two.
STEP 2: Take proper breaks. This one was really important to me. Before, when I would have a task or a project lined up, I would be working on it and then inevitably get pretty tired and exhausted after a few hours. And naturally, I'd pull out my phone. I thought I was taking a break, but in reality, my brain was getting way more overloaded than it had been before. Once I started getting used to not using my phone during my break, it actually felt really good to do. My experience varied. Sometimes I just sit, maybe go for a walk. Okay, never mind. I'm just going to pace around the house and maybe make a coffee. Anything to let my brain sort of just mellow out. My phone would give me a debuff and by taking my breaks without it, it let my cool downs come back up. This was a huge win for me. It felt like I could jump right back into it without feeling like it was too much for me. I started to become a master of my phone. I was able to make art again. Maybe I could actually be that monk.
STEP 3: Don't sleep with my phone. This one was actually the toughest for me, and there's a reason I put it right here in the middle. I realized that I couldn't trust myself to be in the same room with my phone. If it was physically around me before I went to bed and after waking up, I'd most likely just end up using it. All that stress and anxiety had piled up over the day would come flooding right back in, and I didn't want to face it. So, I'd just end up scrolling. It was only when I stopped that I realized how bad it was that I was using my phone at such sensitive times. I'd have just woken up and injected the entirety of humanity's essence straight into my eyeballs. And in order to fix that, I stopped bringing it in with me. I was starting to shape up to be a proper Analog Rogue from then on. The effects were actually pretty insane and really fast acting. The fog that was in my head was starting to really clear up. I'd actually be able to regulate and not be a walking zombie the entire day. Truthfully, I'd still end up using my phone and use it, I did. But it felt like it was different this time. It felt like there was a boundary that it couldn't cross.
STEP 4: Get in, get out. Before using my phone, I needed to set an intention for what I was going to use it for. Gone are the days of getting lost in the algorithm. I'd set up a proper plan and execute on it, and I could tell right away if something was going wrong. This part was pretty cool for me. This was a full-blown heist mission. I could take all the goods and not overstay my welcome. A lot of the blockages that I had with my own art was that I kept making comparisons to everyone else's. But now that I was going through the steps of separating myself from my phone, it started to be a lot easier to not have to make those comparisons. This one will set you up really nicely because for the last one, you'll need
STEP 5: Be prepared to fill the phone vacuum. This is the part where it gets really fun because you get to start making it your own. For me, I needed to fill the gigantic, universe-sized hole that opened up as soon as I started taking my phone away. I tried to fill it with anything that I could. This meant using journals to write down anything that would have gone into my phone instead. I have these four to help me out. This one's Gloria, she takes all my brain dumps. She saves my life constantly. Steve is with me all the time. Anything I want to get down, he's ready like a Swiss Army knife. Tina and Tammy are godsends. Tina helps the goals I have to come to life. And Tammy is my workhorse. Anything work related, she's who I go to. Find a system that works for you. I'll be honest, I wasn't perfect. I'd slip up constantly over the course of the week, but every time that I did, each time would be a little bit easier as I got back into it. But that's the beautiful part. It is a journey, so the best part was just picking myself back up and continuing on.
Over the week, I realized how much time I had. I slowly started feeling like I could do things again. At first, it was awkward and annoying, but as the week went on, I started to feel better and better. Naturally, I got back to doing the things that I actually cared about rather than wasting the hours so that I didn't have to think about it. And slowly, my peace started flowing. The system evolves, so I'll probably be moving, adding, and taking things out once I feel like it no longer fits. Everyone's different and I'd love to hear what everyone else is able to do so that maybe I could be a rogue and take it for myself. Go live your best Anarogue life. And if you'll excuse me, I have some artwork I need to get back to. Thanks for watching! Yahoo Thanks for watching!